Benghazi, the color insurrection in disarray

by Thierry Meyssan

Muslims have been encouraged to cease hostilities during the month of Ramadan. Nothing significant should be expected to happen in Libya at the military level until August 28. But who benefits from the respite?

As Ramadan kicks off, NATO’s millitary operation in Libya is sinking into total confusion, has observed Alexis Crow.

This Chatham House analyst, specializing in the study of the Atlantic Alliance, is one of the first Western think tank experts to have publicly addressed Al Qaeda’s role in the bosom of the "rebel forces". Today again, she is the first one to talk about the elephant in the room: NATO’s political leaders have abandoned their war aims, both formal and informal. They have, strictly speaking, no alternative strategy, other than to look for an escape that would allow them to hold their heads high. Quite obviously, it is not just the French General Staff, but currently also London that is concerned to see its forces getting bogged down in Libya with no solution in sight.

The "protection of civilians" has never been anything but a contrived slogan to begin with. Now, the idea of "regime change" in Tripoli has also evaporated, as has the option of dividing the country into two separate states with Tripoli and Benghazi as capitals. At most, Brussels hopes to obtain autonomous status for a few enclaves.

Aware of the looming political and military disaster, Washington is seeking a negotiated exit, while claiming that it is not because NATO has lost the war that it must stop bombarding Libya. Time is on our side, tout US emissaries, while the National Transitional Council has drained the Libyan bank accounts that were frozen by the UN Security Council.

In any case, if Washington has made ​​a mistake and is incapable of redressing the situation, it is because it hasn’t learned the first thing about Libyan behavior. Intoxicated by its own propaganda, the United States believed it would be facing a centralized and vertical dictatorial structure; instead it stumbled upon a horizontal and opaque system in which power is spread out, including at the military level. In spite of meeting with several emissaries in various capitals, the US failed to gauge their lack of political representation. And even worse, they cannot figure out the reactions of mercurial Muammar Gaddafi, who is equally persuaded that time is on his side. Well informed article here